Ask yourself a question. If you didn’t have to go to work today, get dressed in that uncomfortable office attire, fight the traffic or go through a hectic same day-to-day commute, to sit at your desk while you complete that stressful project. If that wasn’t a key requirement of making a living and putting food on the table, would you still do it?

Many start-up entrepreneurs escape that environment by starting a new business. But apart from losing the suit for a t-shirt and swapping the cubicle for the bedroom or parent’s garage, the rest is pretty much the same old.

#GeoAgnostics #DigitalNomads

So how about adding location independence in the mix? Enter Digital Nomads - a growing cross-section of the working population who have leveraged the internet and technology to allow themselves to work or start-up almost anywhere in the world.

It’s the proverbial university gap year, but it never ends. It’s the “I’m going travelling” mentality, but instead of working in bars or doing odd jobs to fund the next plane ticket, they take their careers with them in their carry-on.

While some digital nomads themselves cringe at the term, it is used to reference a relatively new type of worker/entrepreneur who does their job on the go.

Arising mainly out of the tech and web-based industries, it is a philosophy of adventure and self autonomy. They choose the environments they wish to work in, make their own schedules, and spend as much time as possible taking in new cultures and experiences. They pick lower cost locations to bootstrap their business and then move or go back to the big tech hubs when investments and more specialised talent are needed. They leverage location independence to their advantage and the benefits are astonishing.

A new infographic from BargainFox & SavvyBeaver explores this lifestyle more closely, looking at some of the hubs were nomads operate, why Bali is particularly appealing for remote work right now, and some of the major companies that are promoting and embracing the concept.

The infographic reveals that in 1990 almost nobody was a freelancer or telecommuter. After all nobody had mobile phones, personal computers or the internet, so it made little practical sense. As computers became faster, laptops became more viable, and the likes of AOL brought the internet it to people’s homes, the first true remote workers began to emerge. By the early 2000s 15% of the working US population were considered freelancers. Today it is closer to 30%. It’s no secret that during this time internet connections have gotten cheaper and faster, and mobile technology has become more versatile and powerful. Prominent digital nomad Pieter Levels has recently compiled data that suggests there will be upwards of 1 Billion digital nomads by 2035, nearly 14% of the global population!